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I just saw the Grateful Dead documentary at IFC. If you're thinking of seeing it, go ASAP because according to the theater, it will be yanked after Thursday - it's been doing exceptionally well but they were told they could NOT hold it over.

I've never been a huge fan of the Dead - my interest in them has been limited to their three best-known albums (the two country-rock albums, Live/Dead) and what may be there best-known bootlegged show, the Cornell University show from 1977. In each case, I've never been compelled to play the music all the way through, no matter how many times I've given it a try.

So I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the documentary, moreso because it is four hours long. (FWIW, friends of mine who were much more familiar with the band told me that most of the archival footage was new to them.) The film is pretty open about their missteps - artistic, personal and social/political - but they still came off as endearing goofballs to me. In the early years with Warner Bros., when their adventures in the studio come off as clearly misguided, I found myself unexpectedly happy and relieved when they finally broke through with their hit country-rock albums. Even better was how much of the music was actually enjoyable to a skeptic such as myself - this was a very well-curated film.

Which brings me to another point - the director was obviously a huge fan of the band, and he did an outstanding job of putting together something that would be special not only to longtime fans but for newcomers as well.

Beyond the music, it was also fascinating to see how the Dead were able to appeal to so many people across the political spectrum. Last year, I came across a survey on music and politics that showed the Grateful Dead was by far the most popular band with those who identified themselves as Republican. Odd because as the film points out, Reagan became governor of California by going after the counterculture. Quite a few older, longtime Democrats like James Cagney left the party and joined up with the GOP despite their admiration for FDR and everything the party did for the working class because they were quite afraid or appalled at what they saw in the counterculture and what it was doing to younger people in America (the drugs being the worst). So when I saw that survey, I was initially puzzled - the film itself even points out that Nancy went to a Dead show. What made the Dead (or Dead culture) different becomes apparent through the film's clear portrayal of the Dead's (and specifically Garcia's) overall philosophy, which could be interpreted as a form of libertarianism. There would still be plenty of contradictions, but it's easy to see how the basic tenets of the way the band managed its affairs can appeal to many pre-Trump Republicans. (To be clear, the music would be the most important, but I imagine these other aspects of the band help make them favorites above other bands.)

hearthesilence wrote:I just saw the Grateful Dead documentary at IFC. If you're thinking of seeing it, go ASAP because according to the theater, it will be yanked after Thursday - it's been doing exceptionally well but they were told they could NOT hold it over.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime (free to Prime members anyway).

Long Strange Trip is a most fascinating look at the Grateful Dead's career. It shows a singular focus on the Dead phenomenon, without much concern for social context of the times in which they thrived. The closest it does come to that, is in discussion of how the following got larger in the 80's, a time when the values of the 60's counter-culture were largely being trampled upon. It really even doesn't concern itself much with the band's peers of that time, either. Those might be considered major gaps when it comes to other groups and artists, but the Dead were such an outlier to the music industry it feels apt in a way that this documentary have such a tunnel-vision towards the subject.

I think the part which I liked the most concerned the tape trading community, and how people get obsessed with how the band sounded each night. I went through something like this purchasing a couple King Crimson box sets a few years ago, and watching it kind of brought me full circle on it, where as before I'd probably look at something like listening to concerts like that as a bit too much. I doubt I will pay as close attention to any live Dead stuff as some of their following did, but I am much more curious about their music than I probably ever have been before.